The Phrase Finder was once again where I located a definition. Several sources described the expression to mean behaving in an impulsive or irregular manner or in irregular bursts. The word “fit” can be used to describe a medical condition called a paroxymal attack. There are sudden spasms or convulsions caused by multiple sclerosis, head trauma, epilepsey, malaria, and several other conditions. Fit can also be used to describe an emotional reaction. William Warner wrote in Albion’s England in 1581, “His seruants fear his solemn fittes.” Fits and starts both can mean sporadic activity and the expression was first recorded by Robert Sanderson in Sermons in 1681, “if thou hast these things only by fits and starts.”
Wild Hair
I was asked about the origin of the expression, which usually contains more words to describe a hair that has found its way into a position to make a person behave in an uncomfortable, strange, or unexplainable manner. Blogdom.org believes the saying evolved from the skittishness of hares during the breeding season. It gives the example of Lewis Carroll’s Mad Hatter’s tea party.
Wild hare was used to describe the erratic behavior of rabbits in rut, which then created the expression used to describe behavior that defies explanation.
Beyond the Pale
I heard a commentator describe the amount of United States governmental debt to be “beyond the pale.” Charles Funk’s book about expressions explains that pale was used in the early days of English history to describe an area under governmental control defined by paling, which is a fence made with wooden stakes called pales. The expression originally defined areas outside of control, which made the areas attractive to rogues. The worldwideword web site explains that the expression evolved to mean actions that are outside the limits of acceptable behavior. The Pickwick Papers written by Charles Dickens in 1837 has one of his characters saying to another, “I look upon you, sir, as a man who has placed himself beyond the pale of society, by his most audacious, disgraceful, and abominable public conduct.”
New Rocky Flats Links
There have been two sites added to links. The first is for Homesteaders, which is a nonprofit organization of Rocky Flats employees. The organization is active in issues of importance to past employees, publishes a monthly newsletter, and hosts several social events.
The second new link is to a LeRoy Moore’s blog. He provided an extensive review of the book about Rocky Flats, and we exchanged several emails discussing his comments. The entire lenghty exchange is on the left colum of his blog complete with misspellings and typos.
The discussions include:
- Risks from exposure to low levels of plutonium
- Plutonium contamination downwind of Rocky Flats
- The Grand Jury, the plea bargain, and the Congressional hearings
- The firing of Rockwell by DOE
- Contention that the raid and Grand Jury were part of a cover up to thwart Sierra Club lawsuits against DOE
- Concerns there are 65 boxes of documents sealed by Grand Jury proceedings
- My incorrect presumption that activists were paid
There are polite disagreements, but I believe they add value.
Tea Party Origins
A Seattle blogger named Liberty Belle (Keli Carender) is credited with organizing a mid-February 2009 protest against the stimulus package that she originally called the “Porkulus Protest.” The protest gathering of about 100 people became known as a “tea party.”
CNBC’s Rick Santelli is widely acknowledged to have began the nationwide launch of the movement. He was being televised from the floor of the Chicago Mercantile Exchange when he went into a rant about proposals that the government step in to help homeowners facing foreclosure. He said, “Do we really want to subsidize the losers’ mortgages? This is America! How many of you people (looking at the floor traders behind him) want to pay for your neighbor’s mortgage that has an extra bathroom and can’t pay their bills?” He went on to suggest that he would organize a Chicago Tea Party, where capitalists would dump “some derivative securities into Lake Michigan.” The video of his tirade became a YouTube hit, and the movement was born.
Tea party protests sprang up across the country, and MSNBC and other media outlets began running stories demeaning the gatherings. I tolerated the frequent “insider joke” about “tea baggers” (apparently the commentators didn’t believe average people would know how to use the Internet to learn what that term means). However, I stopped watching Rachel Maddow the night she said something to the effect that it was difficult to understand what the protestors were saying, because their words were muffled by their white hoods.
I’ve been an interested watcher of politics since the mid-1950s, and the criticisms by public officials against the Tea Party is the first time I can recall politicians demeaning a significant group of their customers, the voters.
How Do You Like Them Apples
I recently watched the movie “Good Will Hunting” again, and Will has the following conversation through a cafe window.
“Will: Do you like apples? Clark: What? Will: Do you like apples? Clark: Yeah. Will: Well, (holding a piece of paper with a telephone number written on it against the window) I got her number. How do you like them apples?”
Wikipedia and other sources speculate the expression came from World War I when allied soldiers used mortar shells they called “toffee apples” (candied apples that have a stick in them to hold them while being eaten). Soldiers may have shouted the phrase across the lines “in sort of a victory cry” after a mortar shell hit the target.
The first known printed use was in a U.S. Army unit’s history. A soldier used the remark to express disappointment when he was told the unit was not going to receive many supplies.